Posted on 12/03/2017 5:15:52 PM PST by smileyface
4 Hours Ago
Pharmacy chain CVS will purchase insurance giant Aetna in a deal value at $69 billion, The Associated Press reported Sunday.
The move will dramatically expand the drugstore juggernaut's health services; a historic amplification which could transform the health care industry.
If approved by regulators, CVS' 9,700 locations could morph into health care centers, providing its consumers with primary care and other services and dramatically lowering the cost of health care.
The unprecedented merging of retail and health care is likely to spark similar deals throughout the industry, experts said.
The entire industry needs to be deregulated and thrown to the friendly wolves of capitalism.
Holy Cow is right!!!! Amazing that the PRIVATE MARKET can have such a positive effect on potentially lowering the cost of healthcare and the FED GOVT COULDNT.....
Hmmm
Yes, this seems like it would run afoul of the antitrust laws for pharmacy, as first blush...
I do B-12 shots every month. I have Medicare and a supplement
My primary doc charges 115 for the office visit and 20 for the juice. medicare picks it up because it is a covered item.My sup pays 4.25 no matter which one I go to
CVS Minute clinic charges medicare 28.00 total visit and shot
I go to Minute Clinic and save us all $$
If I wasn’t such a woose I would give myself the shot but cant do it.
Whatever happened with Walgreens buying Rite Aid?
Now all they need is for Pfizer to buy CVS/Aetna and they’ll have the market cornered. Drugs, and only drugs, for all of your medical needs. Break an arm? Take a drug instead. Kid needs tonsillectomy? Give him drugs instead. It will be all that insurance covers.
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Healthcare is a joke!
And it will only continue to get worse with more pharma poison money in control.
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No kidding!
Drugs are killing everywhere you look.
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Last I heard, it was still on, but not all the stores. http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/09/rite_aid_walgreens_deal_whats.html
A lot of people would prefer the iron fist of socialism to the invisible hand of capitalism.
Think they are still screwing around.Not the same situation.
The lazy (and also the unfortunate) see capitalism as having an iron fist. I’ll take it with all its “unfairness” any day over the enforced mediocrity of socialism.
I got a tetanus shot at the Minute Clinic last week. Saved time and money. No co-pay, insurance paid entire thing.
I was a member of Kaiser Permanente in SoCal for a number of years.
Received great care there when I needed it.
This sounds like a good approach, for much of the rest of the country, for this approach.
This could be an interesting secular move.
Not being in the medical field at all, I’d imagine that 65% of emergency room visits could be handled at some form of a “neighborhood” clinic, a lot like the Mexican model. Yes, I said it.
Yes, 2500-3500 sq ft suburban buildings with nurse practitioners and some RNs and 1 doc.
With a bowl up front and you put $20-$50 in it per visit. Cash. No insurance, the facility can’t do anything serious enough to merit insurance. Maybe a real simple broken arm is $250.
Even if such facilities, 20,000 of them across the US were partially subsidized, I’d bet it would dramatically reduce HC costs.
Kaiser is sometimes accused of “assembly line” health care but I do not regard that in any way as a negative. I was a member for half a dozen years and thought it was very efficient, very well run. They know what they are doing, they get you where you need to go, they slam you through and get you on your way. In no way do I consider that superficial even if it sounds like it.
They bought my Rite-Aid, a pharmacy I loved.
Boom ! The entire pharmacy team let go and an entire new team brought in.
INSTANT DIVERSITY,if you get my drift.
To say that I was annoyed would be an understatement.
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In my area, Rite Aid is our favorite. They have excellent pharmacy people, and good rewards programs.
I haven’t had much experience with Walgreen’s; I like it too, I just wouldn’t want to lose my Rite Aid.
If this ends up being what I think it will, I like it.
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